


Talking Moistly: A Memoir

by FlockOfPigeons



Category: Blaseball
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26247811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlockOfPigeons/pseuds/FlockOfPigeons
Summary: Jesús Koch’s autobiography, started after his first season with the Moist Talkers. Will be updated season by season, as per his contract.
Kudos: 7
Collections: Canada Moist Talkers Fanfiction





	1. Chapter One

My name is Jesús Koch, and I play Blaseball. 

I’d like to assume that you all already know that - otherwise, why pick up the book, am I right? - but you may also have heard of me by another name (including, but not limited to):

  
  


Coach Koch, Truest Jesús't, Koch Got Your Tongue, Loose Jesús, The Jesús'st with the Moistest, Slippy, Other-side, Wetfoot, Dampsock, Nickname King, The Jaden Smith of Blaseball, The Willow Smith of Blaseball, Captain "Cap" Anti-Cap, The Killer Hitter, Kid with a Comet In His Hands, The Anti-Meteorite, They Who Face The Blaseball, Mx. Respect the Receptacle, Clinch Hitter No-Quitter, Jesús-3000, Outkast Stan, Aquaman but Reverse, Kochlear Cavity, Talkin' Chuy, Babe Ruth-But-Hot, The Word, Grandest Slammest...

You catch my drift.

_ (Editor’s Note: Can we maybe pare this down a little bit? This seems... excessive.) _

_ (Jesús’s Note: I already did! This is only like. The popular ones.) _

_ (Also, guess you’re not the ONLY one who can write little notes here, huh? It’s a two way street, baby.) _

This is generally the point where the author would wax poetic about their childhood, all “oh, I never thought that I’d be here,” or “it’s only by the grace of god/the support of my family/the friendship of my friends.” But I’m not going to say any of that. I always knew I’d be here, and I did it by my own damn self. And you can quote me on that. 

_ (Editor’s Note: Firstly, the grammatical style you’ve chosen to employ here is not really suitable for a publication of this nature, but that’s something we can work on when the manuscript is closer to being complete. Secondly, this reads as somewhat hostile. Can we maybe aim for a more even tone?) _

_ (Jesús’s Note: Look, if I know anything about professional splortsmanship, it’s that people like it when famous people are rude. They’re all like “wow! That’s so bold” or “that’s so cool that he can just speak his mind like that.” I grew up on this stuff, trust me. I figure by the time this book is done, I’ll be crazy famous. I mean, sure, we didn’t make it to the postseason this year, but we’re gonna take finals someday! I know it.) _

I got drafted by the Moist Talkers straight out of high school. I had promise, and they knew it. Plus, given that the country had flooded and the arena was prone to mild flooding itself, a player with gills was a notable advantage. Of course, the first day of training we ran introductions and man, I was expecting weird but these guys were something else. 

The first thing I noticed about Kennedy Alstott was that he was an absolute hulk of a dude, and given his family is largely comprised of football players, that makes sense. He didn’t talk like a football player though. Mostly he wanted to talk about his kid - pulled out his wallet to show me pictures and everything. She apparently moved to Charleston to play for the Shoe Thieves, which is a wild amount of freedom to give a kid but hey, I don’t judge!

Next was Tyler Violet, and know that I mean this when I say it because this is not a term I use lightly, they were cool as hell. All spikes and devil-may-care attitude. Her roommate came to all our practices too, including that one, and I think she was the only one Tyler really opened up around. The roommate, Ziwa, brought her guitar a lot of the time too, and would sit and practice while we did. Said she could teach me some, because I mentioned I’ve got an acoustic but never learned to play. We’re planning some pre-practice jam sessions. Like I said, the two of them? Super cool. 

Elijah Bates, meanwhile, was not cool. Super obsessed with some musical. And, don’t get me wrong, I was a theatre kid. I get it. But demanding to be announced as if he were a character from said musical every time he stepped up to the plate? Incredibly lame. Be your own announcer, man. It’s way more fun. 

Trevino Merritt came into the league as a self proclaimed wild card, and man did he live up to it. Where Tyler was the reserved kind of badass, Trevino was loud and in your face, yet managed not to be obnoxious about it. I could see us getting along damn well. 

Can’t lie on this one - Joe Voorhees scared they shit outta me. He just... appeared. Out of thin air. Tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned around he like, waved at me, which is friendly enough I guess, but the dude was wearing two hockey masks. Two! And he smelled like... I dunno. Like he had just emerged from the gullet of some deep-sea monster. I’m told that this is because he lives in the underarena, which really does not make me less scared of him. 

Back to cool people - Eugenia Garbage? Super cool. Sure, she’s made of trash, but the people love her! She’s a damn good batter too. I’m not sure what else to say about her, honestly. She’s an enigma. An enigma you can smell coming from across the pitch, but an enigma nonetheless. 

Richmond Harrison and Hobbs Cain are clearly a package deal. They’re inseparable! Richmond doesn’t talk, just kinda of burbles at you, but Hobbs translates for him. I asked Hobbs why he wouldn’t just talk to me like a normal person, and he looked almost worried - not like, worried about himself, but he looked at me like I was a mouse about to step into a trap, and got real quiet while he stared at the sky for a real long time. Weird dudes, but nice enough. I was worried about Richmond given that he lost an arm to THE MAW (why there was a giant mouth in the middle of stadium I have no idea, but it did keep the outfielders on their toes during home games. Plus, it seems to be gone now, so no big deal I guess?), but Mooney (more on her later) keeps telling me not to worry and that it’s not a big deal, so I’m gonna keep chill about it. 

Oliver Notarobot is one weird dude. Mediocre pitcher, but I did get him to have an entire conversation with Siri once, so at least he’s fun to hang out with. That’s... all I have to say about him honestly. 

I’m pretty convinced that Greer Lott doesn’t actually show up to most of our games. When I met her for the first time, she was also kind of scary: lots of razor sharp teeth, beady black eyes, tattoos, the whole meal deal. But every time I see her on the mound there’s a cardboard cutout there, until I stop paying attention (why am I not paying attention? Aren’t I always paying attention? What happens?) and suddenly the umps are calling out strikes and there she is, teeth and all, like nothing happened. 

Jenkins Good is, well, pretty great at pitching. Weird guy to talk to, though. Keeps muttering to himself about his eye, which like, can’t blame him there. The damn thing glows. He also doesn’t really practice with us, because he always goes into our breakroom and starts playing Wii Splorts Blaseball. I asked the coaches about this, and they kinda just shrugged and said “Whatever works!” Incidentally, our coaches, Michel É. Moose and Chalky Hoodwinkle, are a moose and a goose respectively, so they can’t really pitch or bat, but they give good advice.

Ortiz Morse, in contrast, is awful. God awful. I don’t want to talk about him. 

_ (Editor’s Note: Jesús, he’s your teammate. Being rude is not a good look here.) _

_ (Jesús’s Note: Fine.) _

I guess he’s a nice person. 

Finally, Mooney Doctor. I really don’t know when she sleeps, because she spends all night staring at the moon and talking to it. Apparently they’ve been married for over ten years, which is very nice I guess. Also, a note to anyone reading this: don’t ask her if her wife had anything to do with the whole flooding thing. She takes it REAL personally, and is grumpy for the next week. She’s also our team doctor. Apparently her degree is in marine biology, so it checks out. 

  
  


And... that’s the introduction I guess. We played a season and didn’t win it, so I don’t want to talk about that. But we’re gonna win the next one. Just watch us. Plus, apparently they’re gonna open up the rule book finally, so we’ll actually know what we’re doing. 


	2. It’s So Dark

I’ve never known darkness like this. 

It’s been dark for so long. 

Why did we open it? We didn’t have to open it but we did and now someone is gone why did we...

Fuck. 

Her name is - was, I guess - Jaylen. Jaylen Hotdogfingers (oh god, I laughed at that when she took the pitcher’s mound, I laughed, why did I laugh?), she was mayor of Seattle, played for the Garages...

Gone. 

Bright light, blinding heat, and then nothing. That’s what her teammates said in the interviews. 

I want out. Incineration is the only way out. 

There is no way out. 

Play blall. 

_ (Editor’s Note: Look, I know you’re upset. I’d be worried for you if you weren’t. Maybe take a break from writing for a bit. Come back when it’s not going to hurt as badly to do. Let yourself breathe.) _

_ (I can’t.  _

_ -J) _


	3. Chapter Two

_(Jesús’s Note: Look, gonna get this in here preemptively: can we just... ignore the last bit there? I know it’s already in the cloud or in your databases or whatever it was just... it was a bad time, okay? I’m ready to handle this. I can do this. I promise.)_

Season Two is over, Trevino is gone.As are so many others. 

Before I get into the darker parts of the season - and damn, there were a lot of dark parts - I need to admit I was wrong.

You heard it here first, folks. 

I said that I made it on my own and, yknow, maybe that was true. I don’t know. I paid so little attention to everyone around me. When you think you’re the centre of your own little galaxy, when you spend your time staring into the sun and trying to see yourself within it, it’s blinding. So I really don’t know. And maybe I didn’t say it on paper (or document or whatever), but I thought that anything I accomplished would be by my hands alone. And I. Was. Wrong. 

Victory isn’t just an on the field thing. 

Victory is seeing Richmond - somehow taller? - back on the field, two-armed by some medical miracle, Mooney grinning like a jackal whilst swearing off any involvement in it. A return that I didn’t know I desperately needed to overshadow that lurking theme of loss that had shaken us all after Jaylen. 

Victory is crashing at TyVi and Ziwa’s apartment, Ty telling me that she would show me “the real way to use a microphone” and belting out lyrics that Ziwa had written, letting me add my own singing voice (if you can really call it that) to the din of melodic catharsis and shredding guitar. 

Victory is watching Morse get up to pitch again and again despite a jeering crowd, it is adding your voice to your teammates’ in opposition, in cheering, in despite everything having faith. 

Victory is so loud, and takes so little. But to say that victory was the tide and not simply an undercurrent would be a lie. 

We thought it would just be Jaylen. Thought it was one life snuffed out, thought that we could survive the dark without further repercussions. It turned out that that was not the case. 

I won’t list everyone here, not out of disrespect, but because I really can’t bring myself to. We’ve seen the names cycled over and over in tickers beneath broadcasts, read the reports in the splorts section and had to put the paper down because it felt so wrong. Out of place. 

But I do remember the first time I heard of it happening on the pitch, and the first time I saw it. 

Fitzgerald Massey. Hawaii Fridays. Game 13, against the Breath Mints. The details seem to scroll behind my eyelids whenever I think of it. That sense of fear, knowing now that it could happen to any of us. That’s when Ty invited me over, said that now more than ever we needed to stick together. Be a team, dammit. I don’t know if maybe they knew that I was as shaken as I was or if I was just the first one to make eye contact in the locker room after we got the news. The coaches waited until after the game to tell us, and I resented them for it until the day it happened in front of me. And then I knew. 

Jenna Maldonado. A firecracker of a person, on the field batting against us in our 23rd game that season, wearing the Dalé uniform with pride. A flash of red sparked behind the umpire’s mask - a different umpire than the previous inning, but none of us noticed (no one ever notices) - and then flame. Light and heat in one sharp burst, soundless save for the crackling of fire and lightning. We all stopped. We had all heard about Massey, but hadn’t expected to see it in person, a mere ten days later. How could the game continue? We didn’t see the point in it. The Dalé wanted to mourn, and we began to step away. Bats and gloves dropped, hit the ground in a chorus of sound, before we felt it. The heat. Kennedy described it (being one of the few on our team susceptible to such things) as being similar to the sensation a person feels when they’ve been out in the sun too long and know, suddenly and with dire certainty, that they’re going to be nursing a sunburn shortly thereafter. But it didn’t stop there. It just kept growing, escalating, until gods above and below it was unbearable. 

We knew what was coming. So we kept playing. 

We held each other up. 

The stupid thing? I still do love the game. I wanted to walk away, before. But after Trevino... I have to love it. After he went up in flame and smoke, I need to fight. Because all he wanted was to win. As a team. He was so brave in the face of everything, and losing him wasn’t fucking fair, but you know what? Even if we didn’t win, we made it to the postseason. We got one step closer. 

For Trevino. For everyone. We are all love Blaseball now. Incineration is the only way out, so might as well find joy in the now, yeah?

Besides. After everything, we saw the sun again. 

Koch out. 

_ (Editor’s Note: Business first: I think we’ll keep the grammatical irregularities in this one. It speaks to how hard it was to write. Which, business aside, thank you for doing so despite that. You’ve been through a lot this season. Get some rest this offseason, and I look forward to your submission after season three.) _


End file.
